NEW YORK: Facebook has  announced to ban all “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism” on Facebook and Instagram. The decision came less than two weeks after the suspect in the terror attack at two New Zealand mosques streamed the massacre live on the platform.

Facebook said while it had long prohibited hateful treatment of people based on race, it hadn’t applied the same rationale to white nationalism, “because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.”

It said it had reconsidered that after “conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world” who said, according to Facebook, “that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.”

Over the past three months, Facebook said, it had more than 20 conversations with civil rights groups and experts in race relations across the US, Europe, and Africa.

Among the groups Facebook consulted was the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

It will show users who search for terms it says are associated with white supremacy, a Facebook message reads.
Similarly,  it will show users who search for terms it says are associated with white supremacy.